


Vivisection

by bacondoughnut



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Bad Ideas, Canon-Typical Violence, Corner Table Boys, Human Disaster Malcolm Bright, Humor, Minor Injuries, Parent Gil Arroyo, Peril, Vivisection, mentioned - Freeform, mild crack, not ship but feel free to read with your shipping goggles on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26675968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacondoughnut/pseuds/bacondoughnut
Summary: Gil stands up and paces around to the front of his desk, arms folded in front of him. After a second he hums, nods, and says, "I explicitly told you two not to swallow those diamonds.""That was an order?" Vijay asks, feigning confusion."Bright. Why'd you swallow a rock?"
Comments: 23
Kudos: 64





	Vivisection

"Are we gonna die?"

"We're not gonna die."

They are so gonna die.

Somewhere behind him he hears Vijay's disbelieving whimper. It's sort of funny, Vijay being the nervous one when it's Malcolm strapped to the table right now.

The issue with being strapped to the table, one of many that is, is that he doesn't have a particularly wide range of vision. He can't see Vijay and, more importantly, he can't see their captors. He can hear a faint rummaging off at the far end of the room, which he's sure doesn't bode very well for either of them.

He tilts his head at least in Vijay's general direction and half whispers, "What's he doing?"

"Oh, let me think, probably...Getting ready to _murder_ us," comes Vijay's response. Through clenched teeth, no doubt.

"Would you calm down? Everything is gonna be fine."

He at least half believes his own reassurances. The team is on the way, it's just a matter of them getting here in time. And he's not unconscious, yet, so maybe there's a chance of him talking their captors down. Or at least stalling.

"Easy for you to say, Whitly," Vijay hisses. "He's gonna kill you first."

"I told you, I go by Bright now--Wait, how is that better for _me?"_

"I have to watch you die. It's like watching a trailer for your own murder!"

Malcolm half asses a shrug, turning his attention back to the ceiling to think how to talk their way out of this. Then the response clicks, and he turns back to add indignantly, "That's your issue with this? Not the bit about me dying?"

"Obviously that too," Vijay says, punctuated by the scraping sound of chair leg on tiled floor. "Besides, why are you upset? I thought you said we were gonna be fi--Shiiiiiiit."

Great, they've reached the sudden pauses in sentences followed by frightened cursing portion of the evening. Things never seem to go well from there, especially for Malcolm.

He's pretty sure he already knows what to expect, but he tilts his head to the side to see what Vijay's looking at anyway. One of their captors is just visible in his line of sight, getting easier to see as he gets closer. Because of course, he's walking right back over to them. And carrying a scalpel at that.

Vijay was right. Shit.

Malcolm dives right in with the classic, "You don't have to do this."

That never quite seems to work.

"I'll admit I'd rather not cut _both_ of you open," their captor says pointedly. "I'm sort of in a hurry. But unless one of you changed your mind on telling me who swallowed the goods..."

He lets the end of the sentence dangle in the air, a question awaiting an answer. It's met with complete and utter silence, apart from another nervous whimper from Vijay.

The truth is, they couldn't tell him what he wants to hear even if they wanted to. Not because neither of them has the items in question, just the opposite. Pressed for time and, as Dani would say, brain cells, they'd done the only thing they could think to that would keep the stolen diamonds out of the hands of the thieves that took them. The thieves that had already proven they were willing to kill for them, that's how Malcolm got dragged into this in the first place.

They both swallowed a couple of diamonds.

When neither of them responds, the man with the scalpel shrugs and says, "Guess we're starting with you, pretty boy."

"Wait," Malcolm blurts as the man steps nearer. "We don't have to go straight to vivisection. Do you really want more blood on your hands? More cops looking into you? There are other ways to get your diamonds."

He doesn't expect it to work. This man isn't responsible for the death at the scene of the robbery, Malcolm knows. But in the short time they've been here, he's also shown a number of sadistic tendencies. Which means his odds of talking his way off of this table are pretty slim, and he knows it.

"I saw a Mission Burrito on the corner," Vijay volunteers.

"My buyers are waiting," their captor says, setting the scalpel flat on the table and undoing the first button on Malcolm's shirt. "I don't have time for that crap."

"But you have time to dig through the entrails of two adult men? And get rid of their bodies without drawing attention to yourself?"

"Doesn't have to be two," he says, untucking Malcolm's shirt and pushing the now free fabric out of the way. Malcolm can't quite suppress the flinch, even knowing he can't get away. His skin crawls under unfamiliar fingertips. The man quirks an eyebrow and taunts, "Am I making you uncomfortable?"

Malcolm clears his throat. Answers, "Your hands are cold."

He's also, Malcolm notes, not wearing any kind of gloves. Which means, whatever he might say, he has no intention of them walking out of her alive. And, to answer Malcolm's previous question, yes he apparently does want more blood on his hands.

Vijay shuffles uncomfortably when he picks the scalpel back up off the table. The man says, "Cold hands'll be the least of your problems in a minute, buddy."

"Don't patronize him," Vijay snaps with sympathetic indignance. Their captor just laughs. With a distressed whine, Vijay adds to no one in particular, "We're so gonna die."

"No, we'll be fine," Malcolm says again, then promptly gasps in pain.

"Stop!"

"Stop?" Their captor echoes. He looks right across at Vijay and drags the scalpel a little further across Malcolm's skin, a flicker of amusement in his face, and Malcolm fails at suppressing a wince.

He knows what Vijay is going to say before he says it, and it still surprises him. "Stop. He doesn't have your diamonds, I do. Let him go."

"He's lying," Malcolm says quickly, making eye contact with their captor. "I swallowed them, not him."

"What? No you didn't, Whit--Bright. I did."

Ironically, both of them claiming to have swallowed the diamonds, ultimately, will end up having the same result as both of them claiming not to have swallowed the diamonds. He'll have to cut them both open to find out.

"My team knows we're here," Malcolm says hastily, before this guy can get anymore scalpel-happy. "If anything happens to us, they'll find you. You--"

He cuts himself off with another sharp gasp as the man applies more pressure, the blade digging only marginally deeper. It's obvious he intends to do more damage than that, but a distant sound from the hallways catches his attention.

Suddenly, the scalpel is being set back down on the table at Malcolm's side. The man pats his cheek condescendingly with a bloodied hand, shushing them and saying something about checking that out before vanishing from Malcolm's sight. He hears a door swing open and creak stealthily shut.

The man isn't gone more than a few seconds before Vijay's whispering furiously, "Is that your team outside?"

"Yeah," Malcolm says.

"Yeah?"

"I mean, I hope so."

"You don't know? What kind of a profiler are you?"

"Omniscience isn't a skill they can teach you at Quantico, Vijay."

He catches the sharp intake of breath that means a witty retort is coming his way, but it's cut off as the door swings open again. It sounds to aggressive to be their captor.

An instant later, Gil and Dani come into view. Which means JT's in the hallway detaining their scalpel wielding sadist. Malcolm lets his head sag back against the table with relief, declaring, "Dani. Gil. Just in time."

"We should have you microchipped," Dani remarks, already fiddling with the restraints strapping his wrists down.

-X-

The next morning finds them sitting together on the couch in Gil's office, with Gil staring them down from his desk like a particularly disapproving school principle, reprimanding some misbehaved students. Actually, it stirs a distinct sense of déjà vu.

In the end last night had only resulted in about four stitches total. Not as bad as it could've been.

"Do you have any idea how many headaches you two cause me?" Gil prompts after a long moment of unbroken silence. It's a rhetorical question, but Vijay opens his mouth to respond nonetheless, until Gil shuts him down with a single look. Then, "Whose hairbrained idea was it to eat those rocks?"

"Technically," Vijay says cautiously. "Mine....Sir."

Gil nods. "And you came up with this because...?"

"It was the only option, sir."

Vijay's right. If they'd have been found otherwise, they would've been killed immediately. But if they were the only ones who knew where the diamonds were, the thieves would have to keep them alive. At least for a little while.

Gil stands up and paces around to the front of his desk, arms folded in front of him. After a second he hums, nods, and says, "I explicitly told you two not to swallow those diamonds."

They did talk to Gil over the phone while making the executive decision to swallow the diamonds. But, in their defense, they'd also already made their decision and acted on it before Gil made that a direct order. Also, it bought them the time they needed to not...y'know, be murdered by the jewel thieves.

"That was an order?" Vijay asks, feigning confusion.

"Bright. Why'd you swallow a rock?"

Malcolm squirms a bit under Gil's disapproving stare. Clearing his throat, he starts, "Well, Vijay made some really good points and--"

"--And you couldn't let Vijay swallow all the diamonds by himself, is that it?"

"He'd already swallowed two."

"I know that."

"You can't have more than two diamonds in your digestive tract at a time," Vijay argues insistently.

Malcolm frowns, leaning towards him to ask, "Is that true? Wouldn't it depend on the size or shape of the diamonds?"

He's no expert, but it stands to reason the size and shape of the diamonds would affect that number.

"No, I'm pretty sure the limit is two."

Gil sighs aggressively, scrubbing a tired hand across his face before declaring, "You shouldn't have any diamonds in your digestive tract. Ever. Why do I have to say that?"

"Sorry, Gil," Malcolm says, echoed immediately by Vijay's, "Sorry, Gil."

"At the risk of sounding like a broken record," Gil says, uncrossing his arms in favor of stuffing them in his pockets. "Can either of you tell me what you might've done to avoid having to resort to swallowing a bunch of overpriced rocks?"

Vijay actually raises his hand.

Gil nods to indicate him, and Vijay tries optimistically, "Not get caught by the jewel thieves?"

"No. Bright? Any guess?"

Malcolm sighs reluctantly, tilting his head in exasperation towards the ceiling and muttering, "Call for backup."

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Call for backup, I know," he repeats, looking back across at Gil. "But the jewel thieves would've left the building by the time a team got there. We had to stall them."

Gil levels the both of them with a long glare, then drops back into his office chair with a tired huff of breath. He starts, "I ever tell you, my mom wanted me to be a-"

"-a cook, I know."

"-a cook, yeah. And I said 'No, Ma, I wanna be a cop.' Now here I am, a Lieutenant at the 16th precinct," Gil plows on, folding his hands on the desk in front of him. "Writing up reports on why not one, but _two_ consultants swallowed over a hundred thousand dollars worth of evidence."

Malcolm frowns indignantly while, at his side, Vijay hangs his head in something akin to embarrassment.

"We did catch a ring of jewel thieves," Malcolm tries.

"We _did_ catch a ring of jewel thieves," Vijay says, nodding with a sudden sense of self pride. He holds a hand up towards Malcolm in an invitation to high five, saying, "Not bad for the corner table boys, am I right?"

Aware of Gil's eyes on them, Malcom tries to discreetly push Vijay's hand back down. The result is that Vijay awkwardly interlocks their fingers instead, shaking Malcolm's hand in the air in triumph. So Malcolm relents and allows a small smile, muttering happily, "Corner table boys."

Gil just blinks at them. Then, pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighs and says, "Get the hell out of my office."

"Okay," Vijay says, all but hauling Malcolm up with him with his hand still clasped around Malcolm's.

They're halfway to the door when Gil says, "Wait. You don't...still have the diamonds, do you? They dealt with that at the hospital?"

"Funny story, that," Malcolm starts. Then, uncertain he wants to delve into the topic of being prescribed stool softener with his pseudo-father figure, he changes track and says with a nod, "I'll get back to you."

Vijay leans a little closer and whispers, "There's a Mission Burrito on the corner."

Behind him, he hears a hollow thunk as Gil's forehead connects with his desk. It's slightly muffled by paperwork and mahogany, but he repeats tiredly, "Just get out of my office."


End file.
